Books Set in North America; North America; New Orleans, Louisiana

The Things We Lost to Water, by Eric Nguyen (2021)

The Things We Lost to Water is a wonderful novel about a Vietnamese family that immigrated to the United States from Vietnam after the war.  The novel begins in 1978 when pregnant Hương and her young son, Tuấn, run towards a boat to escape from Vietnam.  Hương was grasping her husband’s hand, but in the crush of people, they were separated and he stayed behind.  Hương gave birth to her second son, Bình, in a refuge camp.

Ultimately, the family finds itself in Louisiana and settle in New Orleans East.  Hương writes and continues to try to communicate with her husband Công, begging him to leave Vietnam and come to New Orleans.  Most of her letters are returned to her, however, she eventually received a postcard from him telling her not to contact him anymore.  She tells her sons that their father died in Vietnam.  His absence in the family is actually a presence in the family.  His “ghost” hovers over his sons.

The author captures New Orleans East with its shotgun houses, slummy apartment buildings and bayou filled with garbage.  As a young teen, Tuấn rebelled against his mother’s overprotection and joined a Vietnamese gang.  Although he was very young when he left Vietnam, he had some memories, hence ties, to his country of birth.  Bình, however, never lived in Vietnam, and felt American, so insisted that he be called Ben.  Ben is studious and after he landed a job with a literature professor, was able to obtain a scholarship to attend college.

Although she never stopped loving Công, Hương met and began dating Vinh, a fellow refugee with no apparent ability to hold a job.  He moves in with the family and tries to assume a surrogate father to Hương’s son.  Years later, Hương learns that Công died.  She and Tuấn return to Vietnam for his burial service.  They find that the country has vastly changed in the years since they were gone.

The novel takes the reader from the family running through water in Vietnam to facing the flooding following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  Water is a thread throughout this novel.  The Vietnamese word Nước means both country and water, thus the book’s title is a bit of a pun.  This novel captures the flavor of the New Orleans immigrant experience.

Read:  October 28, 2021

5 Stars

Books Set in North America: United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

The Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom (2019)

The Yellow House is a memoir of New Orleans as seen through eyes of a large, loving family that grew up in New Orleans East.  In 1961, Ivory Webb, a 19-year-old widow with two young children, purchased a house for just over $3,000, on Wilson Avenue in New Orleans East.  She would live in that tiny house for the next 44 years.  Over that period, she would remarry a man named Simon Broom and the family would grow to 12 children.

Sarah Broom, the author, is the youngest child, born in the final days of 1979.  Almost exactly six months later, her father died suddenly, leaving Ivory to raise her family on her own.

While he was alive, Simon would continually attempt to make renovations and repairs on the house.  After his death, the house became another “child” to tend to.  At some point in time, yellow siding was put up on the house, hence the Yellow House that Sarah grew up on.

The first part of the book delves into the history of the development of New Orleans East and its transformation to the neighborhood it became.  By the time the author was born, the neighborhood had changed and was the forgotten district of New Orleans, surrounded by Lake Ponchartrain and the Industrial Canal.

Sarah grew in a loving home environment.  Her mother was determined to see that her children were raised to achieve.  When Sarah began hanging out with the wrong crowd in junior high school, her mother sent her to a religious private school.  Some of her brothers also attended private schools.  Money that could have been used to make repairs in the house went towards education. 

Sarah went to college in Texas.  Two of her brothers drive her to her new environment, where she is suddenly exposed to a bigger world than her comfortable New Orleans.  She eventually lands a job in New York working for O Magazine.  She was living there on that fateful day when Hurricane Katrina struck.  Most of her family, however, was still living in New Orleans East, although they had been evacuated before the levees broke.  The large family became scattered all over the United States.

New Orleans East was one of the first areas of the city to be inundated by water from Katrina.  The Yellow House was severely damaged as water literally covered the house.  The house, however, did not collapse, nor was it displaced to another location, as so many other houses in New Orleans East and the 9th Ward were.

The Federal Government established a Road Home Program, designed to assist Louisiana residents who had been affected by Katrina (and Hurricane Rita, which occurred a month after Katrina).  The Program was to assist homeowners with funds to rebuild their homes.  The Program, however, was fraught with problems.  In addition, city officials, hoping to rid the City of blight, determined that it would demolish homes unless the owners indicated otherwise.  Notices of the demolitions were mailed to the address of the homes that were to be razed.  Thus, 2 years passed and the Broom family was still living outside of New Orleans when the Notice of Demolition was mailed to the Yellow House.  The family was unaware of the notice, and the house ~ the bloodline of Ivory ~ was torn down.  There was little recourse to the family.

After traveling the globe in search of jobs to avoid the trauma of Katrina, the author eventually returns to New Orleans, this time living in the French Quarter, to try to find closure.

I am not generally a fan of memoirs, however, I found this to be fascinating.  I lived (and still live) in South Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina.  I was intimately familiar with the rebuilding of public spaces in the City.  Thus, I was intrigued by the author’s perspective.  She has a beautiful way of describing her surroundings.  I could almost see and feel the city through the pages.

A few photographs were included in the book.  I would liked to have seen more.  Also, a map of the City would be helpful for readers unfamiliar with New Orleans.

Read:  January 6, 2010

5 Stars

Books Set in the United States: New Orleans, Louisiana

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink (2013)

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital is one of the best books I have read about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in one of the New Orleans Hospitals.  It describes not only the events that took place at Baptist Memorial Hospital in the five days following Hurricane Katrina, but also provides some history of the hospital and medical disasters in general.  The hospital had not effective triage system to care for critically ill patients, hence, they were last on the list for evacuation.  Were some of these patients euthanized before the hospital was finally evacuated?

This book explores the issues, both legal and political, regarding the treatment of patients and the medical staff in the handling of patients during such a this hurricane disaster.  The first part of this book describes the five days surrounding Hurricane Katrina, from August 28 through September 1, 2015 when the hospital was operating under disastrous conditions ~ the hospital had lost power, its back-up generators were inadequate, and the lower floors became flooded.  Evacuation of patients took a long time, and decisions were made to evacuate the most ambulatory patients first.  Critically ill patients were given morphine, ostensibly to provide them with comfort to ease their pain, but were these injections lethal doses designed to hasten the death of patients the medical staff could not survive?

The second part of the book focuses on the legal and political aspects of the hospital’s response to the hurricane disaster.  The hospital was run by an out-of-state health care company that seemed to have little understanding of what was actually occurring in New Orleans following Katrina.  Some of the medical staff were horrified to think that some patients were deliberately euthanized.  As a result, the Louisiana Attorney General initiated an investigation, which focused on Dr. Anna Pou and two intensive care nurses.  Charges were ultimately dropped.  The questions, however, persist.

I found this book to be very well written and felt the author provided a balanced view one whether or not these critically patients were euthanized.  The author’s well researched investigation provides the reader with sufficient evidence to allow the reader to decide whether or not the patients were euthanized.

5 Stars

Read: May 15, 2016

Books Set In The United States: New Orleans

Nine Lives by Dan Baum (2009)

Nine Lives, as the title implies, follows the lives of nine New Orleanians who lived through Hurricane Katrina. The Katrina episode, however, does not begin until the end of the book. Instead, Nine Lives attempts to explain the attraction and pull the city of New Orleans has on its residents and why the people of New Orleans are so adamant about remaining in the city after the flooding following the levee breaches in 2005.

The book’s title is also a pun on the phrase “Nine Lives.” The individuals highlighted in the book have suffered tragedy after tragedy, and yet still survive. Hurricane Katrina is another major setback, yet they persevere.

Dan Baum met with, and interviewed, the nine individuals extensively for days on end. He also interviewed others who, either knew the Nine lives spotlighted, or who could provide background information about their segment of society in New Orleans. The Nine highlighted in the book did not necessarily know each other, although some of their lives did intersect.

The nine lives of the book represent a good cross-section of the New Orleans residents. The individuals include residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, politicos, a self-made man who rose to become King of Rex, a transsexual, a police office, and are both black and white. Having lived through Katrina and its recovery attempt (which 5 years later is still ongoing), I understand the characters. I wonder, though, how this book translates to the “other America” ~ those who are not so intimately involved in the Katrina experience.

New Orleans reveled in its “bad boy” reputation as a corrupt and crime-ridden city. It was an open secret that the police department of the city was on the take, and that the schools were some of the worst in the country. New Orleans didn’t try to retain business, and when the oil bubble in the 1980s burst and many of the oil companies pulled up stakes, many of the old and monied residents, found themselves barely hanging on. They kept up appearances, however, to keep their social status. Music and Mardi Gras define New Olreans. New Orleans without Mardi Gras is unimaginable. Mardi Gras and music must go on despite any other tragedy.

The book begins with the teenaged Reginald Lewis in 1965 in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy. That storm caused considerable damage to the Lower Ninth Ward, but the residents of that neighborhood rebuilt their community and remained. Over the next 40 years, that neighborhood slowly became more violent and isolated from other parts of the city. Lewis becomes a streetcar track repairman for years. It is tough, physical work, but he works himself up through the ranks as far as he can as a black man living in the city that fought integration. In the early 1990s, Lewis was instrumental in starting a second-line club of musicians to march in their neighborhood Mardi Gras parades. This lead to his collecting a wide assortment of elaborate Mardi Gras costumes, which became so vast, that he eventually established a Museum of Dance and Feathers.

Joyce Montana is the wife of the Tootie Montana. For years, Black men costumed themselves as Mardi Gras Indians during the Mardi Gras festivals. As Indians, they used to fight and brawl until Tootie Montana came along. Tootie was famous for sewing elaborate beaded and feathered suits. He would spend a year and much money in designing and creating costumes for the festivities. Tootie died two months before Katrina hit. His wife was left to struggle on her own.

Billy Grace is a self-made man who came from a humble background, but married into an old family who owned the famous “Rex House.” The year before Katrina, Grace was captain of the prestigious Rex krewe. When the storm hit, Grace was out of town on business, but his in-laws remained in their Garden District mansion. The house was on high ground, so survived the storm, only to be burned to the ground in the post-Katrina era.

As a young gynecologist, Frank Minyard was a wild man. Although he had married well, he was a womanizer. His wife overlooked this for the status of being a doctor’s wife. Minyard’s epiphany in the 1960s following a depressive crisis pushed him into establishing a methadone program in the city’s jails. His interaction with Black’s horrified his wife, who left him. This ultimately lead him to running for Parish Coroner, a job that he held for the next 40 years. It was Minyard’s office that was responsible for identifying bodies and signing death certificates for the victims of Katrina. He objected to using the word “drowning” or “natural causes” on the death certificates for people who had actually died from heat exhaustion, dehydration, stress, neglect and “political” causes.

Belinda Carr and Wilbert Rawlings are both residents of the Lower Ninth Ward. Both want better lives for themselves and their families. Both are caught in the circumstances of their surroundings. Belinda becomes a teenaged mother, but still dreams of going to college. Wilbert finds himself as a band leader at some of the roughest publics schools, attempting to change the lives of students who are forced to raise themselves amidst non-existent parents. Both have difficulty staying in relationships.

Tim Bruneau is a young idealistic police officer, who was severely injured while chasing a teenage perp. In the hours after Katrina, before the levees broke, he comes across the body of a young black woman. Unable to comprehend why the morgue hasn’t arrived, he tells his superior that he will transport the body to the morgue himself. He wraps the body and places it in back of his car, which he takes to the morgue at University Hospital. The doctor there informs him that he will not accept the body because it is the city’s “trash.” Bruneau drives around with the body in the backseat of his vehicle until he is told to “undo what he did”, and he is forced to drop off the body back to the street.

John/JoAnn Guidos is the transsexual who, after attempting to live as a man, finally realizes that he is really a woman in a man’s body. He also realizes that he can experience his dream only in New Orleans. He opens Kajun’s, a neighborhood bar shortly before Katrina. During the storm, it becomes a haven for those who chose to stay in the city.

Anthony Wells was the most troublesome character. His story is told in first person. He was in and out of jail and, in the post-Katrina evacuation was forcibly transported to Knoxville, Tennessee. He believes that the people of Tennessee “owe” him.

Katrina is still with the citizens of New Orleans. Baum describes why New Orleans is essential to the people living their and why they remain. It is well written and the reader becomes connected with the nine who chose to share their experience to the rest of the country.

Read: April 10, 2010